District 7 looking to streamline registration

EDWARDSVILLE – School registration for the Edwardsville District 7 schools will be a bit more user-friendly thanks to some improvements the administration has made for fall registration.

The Board of Education received an overview of these registration improvements on May 29 as well as information about the addition of a proposed Middle School Transition Study Skills Course and an Intermediate Technology Course.

Edwardsville District 7 Superintendent Lynda Andre outlined the details behind the improvements to the annual student registration process for the upcoming school year. "Parents may now complete registration forms using a PDF fill-able form that will allow parents to type instead of hand-write the information required for student registration, print that off at home and bring it into the office," she noted.

"Parents of returning students may also now pay their instruction/material fees and activity fees online using the My School Box program," Andre added. "That's the program that parents have been using for several years to pay for breakfast and lunch. We will now collect fees that way which will make it much easier for parents to take care of that obligation."

Another improvement involved the long-awaited, traditional August parent letter that details the student's classroom teacher as well as provides bus information. "This will now revert to online on TigerView as we did last year," Andre said.

She pointed out that the information was available on TigerView last year, but parents received letters as well. "Now TigerView is going to be the way people will be able to see that all important information," Andre said. "So people who have registered during the July registration and who have already been provided log-in information – we have lots of staff available to help them with that – on Aug. 8 but not before Aug. 8, but on Aug. 8, TigerView will be turned on and everyone will be able to see that all important information of student name, teacher's name, classroom assignment as well as their bus information."

All District 7 parents received a letter with fourth quarter report cards outlining how to log-in to TigerView, but Andre emphasized that they understand many people will need assistance and that the district staff will be available during the summer to assist with any questions.

"So we're excited about some of those changes to streamline registration," Andre said.

The administration is also working on a new flyer that will list the many District 7 resources that both new students and parents to the district will find useful as well as parents of kindergartners. Andre noted that the flyer will be posted online by the middle of June.

Andre then reviewed a proposed Middle School Transition Study Skills Course that has been developed after Lincoln and Liberty Middle Schools' success with HOPS (Homework, Organization and Planning Skills), a program launched in 2016-17 for identified students who needed additional academic support as they transitioned from fifth to sixth grade.

"I want to credit Steve Stuart and Beth Crumbacher – the brain child - especially working with students at Liberty where Beth was able to see that the blocker to students academic success was really lacking the skills to make that transition and that independence to middle school and how those deficiencies would carry all the way through high school," Andre pointed out. "During her time at the high school, she saw that, and that is really the background for the program we are going to propose."

HOPS has been implemented during Activity Period each day. "During this time, students are taught a specific organizational system including things like how to organize binders and book bag materials," Andre explained. "How do you keep track of assignments for six or seven teachers. Things like these or having teachers sign agendas each day to ensure homework is accurately recorded were helpful in transitioning fifth graders to sixth grade."

"It sounds simple," she added, "but for many children, the lack of ability to have those skills was really preventing them from having the correct homework to study, the correct tests and it was translating into lower grades."

District administrators studied the data from students who had participated in HOPS and found several themes. Many students lacked an organizational system for tracking various class assignments, and many students lacked the skills to independently understand/know/apply strategies for locating information in non-fiction texts.

Another common theme was that many students were still developing skills in time management for completion of academic tasks including research projects and presentations as well as many students struggled with analysis of test questions on a variety of assessments.

"As a result of the success of HOPS, middle school administrators recommended development of a similar course that would be offered to all sixth graders," Andre said.

As the students transition from elementary to middle school, they will receive direct instruction regarding organizational systems for keeping track of assignments, strategies for effective time management and completion of academic tasks, development of skills for reading information from non-fiction texts such as social studies and science texts.

They will also work on analysis of test questions to determine the best response, develop skills required for completion of research papers and group projects and learn how to establish goals and develop plans to attain goals.

Andre proposed that if approved by the board, this Middle School Transition Study Skills course would be implemented in the fall and be a part of the sixth grade Exploratory Wheel. Health, previously part of the exploratory wheel, would be moved to the P.E. block which will result in sixth grade students receiving three quarters of P.E. and one quarter of health.

The sixth grade Exploratory Wheel would include Spanish, art, computers and the middle school transition study skills course.

The course content has been developed by middle school teachers and no additional costs for materials/resources would be necessary for this course. In addition, existing middle school teachers will provide instruction for this course and no additional teachers will need to be hired as a result of the addition of this course.

Andre also provided information about a proposed Intermediate Technology Course. The goal of the course is to provide students in third through fifth grades with foundational technology skills and prepare them to participate in online state assessments, such as PARCC and the Illinois Science Assessment, when required.

Intermediate students would receive one quarter of instruction in third fourth and fifth grades. This 45-minute unit would be taught through the weekly Elementary Specialist schedule.

The curriculum would consist of a classroom component where each intermediate classroom will be scheduled for weekly access to the technology room where students would practice keyboarding skills.

A second technology component would involve the Elementary Specialist teaching a weekly session where the students learn to navigate digital tools required for word processing and problem solving.

Keyboarding instruction will be supported by typing.com, a free web-based keyboarding program for children, GO MATH PARCC will be utilized to provide math practice items through a digital component, and online Pearson PARCC practice tests will be used. "There will be no new costs due to the addition of this unit of instruction," Andre stressed.

In other board action, the board approved the contract extensions for both EHS Principal Dennis Cramsey and Assistant Superintendent of Personnel Nancy Spina through June 30, 2020.

Other approvals included May bills in the amount of $347,355.58, 2018-19 Printer/Fax Cartridges in the amount of $31,490.34, 2018-19, a copier/duplicating paper bid of $112, 207.78, and the disposal of verbatim recordings from Boar of Education's closed session meetings held from Oct. 11, 2016 through Nov. 28, 2016.